Latvian Versus Italian Cuisine

Contents
Italy (pasta):
General information
History
Presentation
Latvia (Pearl barley)
General information
History
Presentation
Histrory
The oldest known pasta or noodle-like food were found in China at the Qijia culture Lajia site in Qinghai province. The 4,000-year-old noodles appear to have been made from foxtail millet and broomcorn millet.
Pasta's origin continues to evoke speculation. While many different cultures ate some sort of noodle-like food, composed mostly of grain, the key characteristics of pasta are durum wheat semolina, with a high gluten content. Furthermore, it is made with a technique that allows the resultant dough to be highly malleable, thus resulting in the many different shapes (i.e., ziti, spaghetti, ravioli) that characterize "pasta." In North Africa, a food similar to pasta, known as couscous, has been eaten for centuries. However, it lacks the distinguishing malleable nature of what is now referred to as pasta, couscous being more akin to droplets of dough. In China, noodles of wheat, millet or rice have been eaten for many thousand years.
The conclusion: pasta has a long history of being used for nutrition all over the world.…